Nadine Williams

Roses to bring Magic to Memorial Garden

It’s Thursday, July 19 and I am about to begin colouring in my garden. I have donned by new gardening gloves and am busy working in my fledgling hillside garden with a good friend, who has brought a box full of seaside daisies, which we hope will cover the bare ground up here.

The hillside is the burial ground of at least a dozen bougainvillea, all of which have died in just a few months.  So, it is time to forget about exotic, expensive species and seek more humble plantings.

Hence, the seaside daisy, reputed to spread like wildfire in any environment where there is water. The plantings are significant because they represent the beginning of my memorial garden to Olivier, which in time, will cover our garden plot with a sea of colour.

 

Friday, July 20: After our humble beginnings yesterday, today we will unpack the dozen bare rooted roses which were delivered to the door by Australia Post on Monday from Ross Roses.  I wrote a month ago about how I chose them by their name because, collectively they reflect our married life. Naturally, I am keen to ensure that they do not die like the bougainvillea and have engaged the help of another friend, who can dig  square holes the depth of a spade.    This task is beyond me following a road accident years ago which impaired my vestibular system and balance.

In my other Belair home on Sheoak Road, I had a beautiful rose garden which flourished during the 16 years we lived there.  It was almost as sad to leave my 50 rose bushes as it was to leave the beautiful dark red brick home with its stunning views.

Interestingly, our garden designer, Diana McGregor is not a rose lover and the initial plan left space for only five standard roses. However, I have added borders of low miniature roses which eventually will edge over the brick pathways. My helping hand today also is not a lover of roses and tells me how he took all of his out of their inner suburban home.

So why do I love roses?  Why did I choose a row of “Seduction’’ standard roses in my former home which I sold to marry Olivier? There are many reasons, the most important being that  they bloom so beautifully for up to six months of the year.  What pleases me is that I can step into my own garden, cut blooms and form floral arrangements to beautify our home. They are beautiful both in the garden and within the home. Roses are remarkably hardy and within the context of the garden design with its focus on exotic and varied foliage and flowering shrubs, I expect the roses will add a spectacular display.

Visitors will walk under an archway draped with the popular French climbing rose “Pierre de Ronsard”, its large double blooms reflecting the “old world’ style of rose. Through the side gate, they will come upon “Amazing Grace’’, an Australian modern bush rose with large pure white crisp blooms, which flower well into autumn. Maureen Ross believes “Amazing Grace” is the best white rose introduced in Australia for decades. However, I chose it to remember – in Olivier’s memorial garden – that this was the theme I selected for his funeral service. Its long stems and delightful fragrance will ensure many floral arrangements in our home.

Roses add natural fragrance to the garden experience and along the pathway, I have  “French Lace”, renowned for its neat bush habit, decorative white buds and sweet scent.   On the other side of the pathway is the low bush rose “Dearest”, a 1960 rose of dainty vibrant pink blooms and also offering fragrance to the garden.

“La France” is also low and will sit amongst a cluster of carnations. It’s  a Hybrid Tea rose dating from 1869 and its creamy petals roll back as they unfold.

Outside my study another “Pierre de Ronsard” will adorn another archway and along the fence will be ’Wedding Day’’,  a Spring flowering rambler – a climber which has masses of small white fragrant flowers.

Roses do require pruning in Winter, but they return 10-fold come Spring and Summer with splashes of colour to please the senses.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My own Joyeux anniversaire

Today is my first birthday since Olivier died and I have been dreading it.  Usually Olivier would greet me with “Joyeux anniversaire cherie’’ and hand me his gift while I was still in bed.  I would kiss him ardently and unwrap his offering in great excitement. It took a good three years for him to learn that it pleased me if he would buy a birthday card, too, and these were so touching I could never throw them out. It was worth the cajoling, because he would always write his birthday message to me in French.

Today I awake in a dull consuming ache of aloneness.  I never laze in bed, but today, bed seems the best option and I stay there propped up with pillows and do what Oli would do in bed every night of our married life. Read his latest book. I begin to read  13, rue Therese, by Elena Mauli Shapiro, one of the latest batch of Francophilia publications.  I received it last night as a gift from my darling neighbour Chris, who is aware of my thirst for any such literary offering.  I read that Elena grew up at that address and also that it is pure fiction. Nevertheless, I plough into it, oblivious to the dog scratching at the laundry door. He will be perplexed why I do not relent as I always do and let him into the living room. Not today.

I eventually do rise to pick up my mobile in the kitchen to take birthday calls, but scuttle back to my warm bedroom haven with a glass of water.  Puppy Oscar is in frisky pursuit because I have relented and opened the laundry door.   Daughters do telephone and so do a handful of friends. I brighten in their attentiveness and weep a little.

Today is the first birthday in my life when I have woken up alone.  There has been always someone else there under roof – my parents as a child, my husbands and the adult children.  Until today.   However, I do reflect.  I never really celebrate my birthday alone, because my only sister, Anne, was born on my 16^th birthday, which is why I pick up the telephone and invite myself to her home for dinner tonight.

Not that I need to eat anything, much less more birthday cake, because son Tyson  and pregnant daughter-in-law Vanessa, are taking me to lunch at the Sheoak Café, now run by my stepson Xavier.

However, there are pedestrian things to do and by 11am, I am at the car wash.  It is here in this most unlikely, unromantic place, that the tears begin to flood my face. That poor café girl merely asks “How is your day?’’ and I see no reason to lie. I tell her it isn’t the best so far because it is my first birthday since my husband died two months ago.

“Oh dear,’’ she exclaims clutching her heart. “I am so sorry to hear that. If you take a seat over here it is nice and quiet.’’  Sympathy is the trigger for tears.

I am all mopped up and made up once more when the children take me to the Sheoak Café. It has a special place in my life long before I met Olivier and 20 years before my stepson bought it two months ago. It was where I picked up my children from the school bus. It was the corner store on the same road where I lived for 16 years of my life with my former husband and then as a single mother. It was a delicatessen back then and did school lunches. Here, too, former owners looked after my puppy Codger, a mischievous collie, and I would pick him up at the end of a working day.

Now, however, Xavier has acquired a spacious café recycled in a unique Australian manner with galvanised iron internal feature walls and a big pot belly stove in one corner. A French  lunch menu is offered today because last night the Café held a Bastille Day dinner. It is a wonderful surprise for this birthday girl. So, I order mushroom soup with truffle oil.  Its a chunky dish thick with juicy chopped mushroom pieces and it is full of flavour.   It reminds me of every lush mushroom dish I ever devoured in France with Olivier, although most of the Gallic soups we savoured were vitamised.  I remember the fields of mushrooms as big as cow pads we found in the Cantal, that first mushroom main course in Paris in 2004 and another year where Odile, awarded a Grandmother of France,  cooked an entrée of cepes picked from the fields that day and placed in a tureen on a long table where we sat on benches in Bienvenue, her restaurant in The Lot. It is remarkable how the French can wind a meal around mushrooms.  Vanessa has French onion soup and Tyson smacks his chops on each mouthful of Boeuf Bourgignon.  The very French lunch triggers happy hormones even though I know Olivier is not at the head of the table anymore.  Xavier’s partner Patricia joins us and presents their birthday gift – delightful Francophilia – a big Paris clock. Their quirky card follows  the French theme – with a photograph of the Mona Lisa in Le Louvre, Paris, with an old French museum guard propped up in the right hand lower corner. It is a reproduced gelatin-silver photograph entitled In The Louvre, Paris, taken in 1976 by John Williams.  I am thrilled with their thoughtfulness.

Gift-giving is important in our family life and Tyson and Vanessa gave me an extraordinary treat – a night at the opera to see La Boheme on Thursday.  Vanessa’s parents accompanied me and as we took our places in the dress circle I knew that I was loved and nurtured and that my life would continue to have joyful experiences even though Olivier was gone.  Olivier and I had never been to the opera together so this was something new to enjoy.  Vanessa has made me a birthday card too with the words “With Love’’ centred  in a medallion. My eyes are misty because I feel loved and here it is written in 3-D.  I actually feel a little like myself again.

Big family, birthday fun

Today is my birthday and it is also my only sister’s birthday. We were both born today, July 15, but 16 years apart.  She is my baby sister, which is why I have invited myself to her house for dinner.  My sister’s house is in darkness when I arrive for our birthday dinner and  I am perplexed because they have five adult children and three of them married this year in January, February and March respectively. Already nephew Jason and his wife Rhianna have produced Anne’s  first grand-child, Theo.  There are two cats and a dog, too. Yet the place is silent, most unlike a birthday celebration. Until I enter with my poodle puppy Oscar. The whole clan of 11 adults, because my niece Chelsea has her boyfriend here too, are clustered in a circle before a roaring slow-combustion heater watching a movie in darkness.

Someone switches the lights back on and we kiss and hug each other and I receive a dozen “Happy Birthday’’ greetings.   Oldest daughter, Sonya has cooked a birthday dinner for her mother and Auntie because we were both born today – July 15, only 16 years apart. And soon a dozen of us cram around the big refectory table seated on a conglomeration of chairs.  Theo at three months, is propped up at the head of the table on my sister’s daughter-in-law Tonya’s lap.

“We are still one chair short,’’ says Ken, who returns soon after with an office chair.

The table is laid with small servings of simple prawn cocktail with creamy sauce and soon Sonya rises to take out two big pastry pies from the oven, which are dissected to reveal the filling of chicken, leak and potato.  She places a medley of colourful roasted vegetables in a bowl in the centre of the table.

“Oh, it smells delicious,’’ says her mother, my sister Anne.  Sonya smiles and we wait for her to sit before we all tuck in.

“It tastes delicious, too,’’ says her new husband, Sam.  It’s his birthday today, too, but I have forgotten a gift.  The puff pastry is crispy and the chicken pieces shred easily under my knife.  It is a triumph and I say so to everyone.

“It’s a wonderful blend of flavours,’’ I state.

The men jibe each other about their respective hair dos and conversation flows onto Chelsea’s new job as a receptionist. Nathan, the youngest child at 17, has been given a prized spot in a TAFE course for the building trade and we buzz about his achievement.  Soon the two pies have been hungrily devoured. The birthday dessert  follows decorated with pineapple pieces and four candles – one for each birthday person. It is also Ken’s birthday on July 18^th – and we blow out a candle each to a chorus of Happy Birthday.

“Time for gift-giving,’’ commands Anne and we move to the living room.

Now Theo commands attention with his distressed crying. “I think he is hot,’’ says new mother, Rhianna of the three-month-old.   Anne whips off his tiny jump-suit and nappie of the infant and lies him naked from the waist on a rug in front of the fire. Oscar is banned to the bathroom.  Conversation lulls as we watch the baby quieten, and kick and gurgle, unfettered by constricted leggings.

The scenario brings back my own memories of Anne when she was a baby and I was 16 years old and how our mother did the same thing. Anne would be stripped and laid on her stomach or back, propped on a pillow and she would kick her chubby legs, smiling and gooing.    Now my love for her overflows as I watch her wonderful, big, loving family.

There are many gifts handed around and the family gives me a stylish oval camphor laurel cutting board and I hand my sister a unique coffee mug screen-printed with stereotypical 1950s images of housewives.

“You can remember me each time you have coffee,’’ I say. “As if I would ever forget you, sister dear,’’ she replies.

I will never forget tonight and how family fun filled the void in my life if only for one night.

 

 

 

 

 

Motherhood yields rich human harvest

 

 

My week has been filled with wonderful family activities to gladden the saddest heart.

The three grand-children are visiting from Queensland with their mother, my daughter Serena and how sweet it is to have children sleeping once more under roof.  My home is noisy and cluttered and daughter has taken over kitchen cooking family meals and making countless cups of Lady Grey tea for me.  However, our family focus is actually on an impending birth.

My son, Tyson and his beautiful, very pregnant wife Vanessa are expecting their first baby in early August and the excitement is mounting.

Today, Vanessa held a Baby Shower, a fun celebration of this imminent event.  The males, poor fellows, were banned to the local pub including a couple of dads with their young sons.

Only females are permitted to this very feminine event.

Many relatives from both sides of the family are here, clustered in a tight, happy ring in the living room.  My favourite family females are here – sister Anne, her two daughters, her new daughter-in-law , my daughter Serena, who, living in Brisbane, has missed three weddings this year – and of special note, the mother-to-be, my daughter-in-law, Vanessa. My precious grand-daughter Josephine wears a new floral dress with a full skirt and puff sleeves which she chose from the rack at David Jones last night.  More important, are her new pair of red shoes. They have a shiny patent finish and are a little too big without socks and they flop somewhat when she walks.  I am delighted simply looking upon her, such a charming child, who draws with confidence on a side coffee table.   “Is Josephine’s dress a Pumpkin Patch design?’’ asks Josie, Vanessa’s sister-in-law.  Her baby daughter, perched on her lap,  is one of  two other delightful little girls.

The two year old looks cute wearing  blue tights and a polka dot top and stands mesmerised by countless fish in the large aquarium.  A babe in arms, wearing blue woollens, adds to the fecundity of the occasion. He is my sister Anne’s new grandson, an infant of three months, who is being rocked  on her lap. From time to time he is passed along the lineup of her three 20-something daughters.

Three of Vanessa’s workmates arrive late wearing  tight pants, cropped jackets, big belts and bright, fashionable scarves. I cast my eye around the room and count five of her female cousins. The room is rich with three generations of relatives from both sides of the family.

The dining room table is loaded with attractive gifts including a high stack of nappies presented in tiers like a white wedding cake.  There is a toy of Kermit the Frog on the top.  The kitchen benchtop is laid out with plates of cakes, bottles of champagne and a punchbowl and glasses.  The foodarama begins with my home-made hot sausage rolls, the first pastries to be handed around followed by hot vol au vonts  pasties and potato pies.

We play games in child-like joy. We sip champagne and we laugh a lot and eagerly await results to see who has smartly cut a piece of string the right length to fit around Vanessa’s bulbous stomach. Baby is due in three weeks, so this is a long piece of string. No-one would be surprised if she gave birth tomorrow.   “My obstetrician says I am a perfect size and there is still room for baby to grow,’’ says Vanessa as if reading our collective thought.

Vanessa is in her crowning glory as hostess Michelle delivers an array of gifts for baby and we watch intrigued to discover the next delightful offering . Everything from white bibs, white singlets and stuffed toys to a white embroidered bunny rug, white jumpsuit and intercom are unwrapped by the mother-to-be.  Such a lovely fuss for Vanessa’s initiation into motherhood.

I ponder like a contented cat over how we grandmothers were once young mothers-to-be, too, high on anticipation, yet fearful of the unknown of childbirth – and four decades later here we sit in the midst of the fruit of our wombs. And so the third generation unfolds.

When birthing stories from my generation begin to circulate, I must leave to take daughter Serena and the children to the airport to return to Brisbane..

Our camaraderie and the gift of family have lifted my spirits and pushed back the gloom of widowhood.  Goodness, I feel  almost joyful in anticipation that soon I will have a new precious grand-child and I can hardly wait.

 

 

Food a Focus in Anti-cancer “synergy”.

The fight against cancer starts in the kitchen according to anticancer guru David Serwan-Schreiber.  “Food is something we give our body three times a day. Everything we eat has a profound impact on our physiology. He tells us to pay attention to what we eat. “I bring in chemicals in my food which fights cancer,” he says.

He notes that red meat is to be avoided. The Anti-cancer Foods World Cancer Research Fund statesthat the goal should be no more than 11 ouncxes of red meat a week, but  in US people consume 11 ouncesrd of red meat a day. Red meat, he reckons, is more expensive than legumes which act as  anti-cancer agents and by adjusting our diet towards a heavier intake of vegetables it allows people to reduce our intake of animal products.

He advocates turmeric, cabbage, broccoli, raspberries and b lueberries to build an anti-cancer biology.

Broccoli, organic or not is the best vegetable to feed your body.

However, exercise also is important part of a routine and he advocates 30 minutes six times a week.

He advocates a “synergy” of lifestyle changes including exercises, decreased exposure to toxins and increasing exposure to sunlight. We should drink plenty of anti-oxidant green tea, too.

Then there is the emotional health of a person. “This is is psychology with which we face our journey and this is also important. Each one of us who has the opportunity to find someone who nurtures you ….is so important.”

That said, he also recommends spending a little bit of time by ourselves for ourselves every day.

“Focus on what it is like to be alive everyday.”

(I am writing this today to psyche myself up because my daughter and my threeprecious  grand-children, aged 10, 8 and 5 have returned to Brisbane and I am indeed left to my own devices to help me feel fully alive and able to cope with the aloneness of my life without Olivier. Hence I share those little tools from time to time on my Life & Style By Nadine Williams Facebook page where I photograph the things which bring me snippets of pleasure- friends, family, flowers, food.) That’s my own “synergy” for surviving grief.

 

 

SA Women vie for Senate spot

Riverland entrepreneur, Anne Ruston is remaining stoic in her bid to contest the coveted Senate vacancy caused by the resignation of Senator Mary Jo Fisher despite a late entry candidate, Kate Raggatt, who flew in from London last week to contest the seat.

Ms Ruston, who is vice-president of the State Liberal Party, has recently won the No. 3 position on the Liberal Party Senate ticket  and is widely considered the front-runner for the unexpected vacancy.

“I have done the hard yards and I hope those who vote will see that,’’  said Ms Ruston.

Her future in Canberra lies in the voting power of the 220 State Council of the Liberal Party.

Kate Raggatt is a former Liberal staff member and is supported by conservative MPs linked to Senator Cory Bernardi.

Anne has had a hectic year beginning her campaigning for the third Senate seat in January this year. However, the resignation of Mary-Jo Fisher is a ticket to Canberra right now for the successful candidate.

The third slot on the Liberal Senate card is virtually unwinnable with the iron grip Senator Nick Xenathon has in the electorate.

Anne has put in a sterling year of lobbying. “I have done the rounds to become vice president and have spoken  to them on the process of the last Senate round and I have made a lot of friends and hopefully supporters,’’ she said.

Although she says she is not factionally aligned, Anne is widely considered the front-runner for the vacancy.

However, Liberal moderates headed by Federal MP Christopher Pyne are throwing their weight behind Anne.

How does she feel about a late starter entering the field, bringing the competition to 6 candidates for the one position?

“I need to focus on my goal and not be distracted by things I cannot do anything about,’’ s he said at her tourism business, Rustons Roses at Renmark.

“I am going to speak to people again and say “This is who I am and this is what I want to achieve.

“I would like to work towards stable government and a sensible government and the best way to do that is to get people elected into Federal Parliament who bring real life experience to the role.’’

Liberal state secretary Bev Barber is also contesting the Senate spot.

The Senate battle will be resolved when Liberal state council votes on July 27.